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Our Emotional Pets

It may be surprising, perhaps shocking for most people to realise that the generally accepted consensus among neuroscientists working with human and/or non-human subjects is that only humans are conscious (Panksepp, 2005a) - the term consciousness as used here refers to the ability to experience internal, personal subjective experiences ( AFFECTS is the psychological term for these for which Panksepp has coined the term affective neuroscience) such as sadness, joy, happiness, fear, anger, etc.. This has not always been the case, throughout the 19th Century many scientists readily accepted the concept of the mind, emotions and feelings as psychological phenomena. It was the 20th Century, with the dawn of the hard behavioural scientist movement, spearheaded by behavioural psychologists like Watson, who considered any kind of mind/mental/cognitive states as irrelevant, unscientific clutter. Instead they concentrated on stimulus response behaviours that could be measured (see McMillan & Rollin, 2001, Greenspan & Baars, 2005, Lecas, 2006 for reviews). Over the last 25 years, neuroscientists have contributed a vast amount of information on emotional learning, and Joseph LeDoux (1996) on the neurophysiology of fear in particular. The question arises as to whether non-human animals EXPERIENCE fear, that is, do they have the same aversive internal mental FEELINGS as humans that accompany the obvious behavioural response, such as a dog fearful of thunder? The answer to this question, according to Jaak Panksepp is... even in well-funded areas such as fear conditioning, there is scarcely an investigator who dares explicitly address the ever present worrydo animals experience fear?... and fear of being tarred with the brush of anthropomorphism (Panksepp, 2005a). Panksepp goes on to explain one reason for this... Joseph LeDoux, the best funded animal emotionalmemory researcher in America, publicly related how he failed to obtain approval for his initial grant applications until he extracted the term emotion from his proposed work to study classical-conditioning of fear and replaced it with learning and memory terms Other neuroscientists interested in emotions had comparable, but more sustained, funding p roblems throughout the last quarter century (Panksepp, 2005b). Panksepp argues that rather than being a recent development of the human neo-cortex, the roots of consciousness (he uses the term AFFECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS to reflect its internal, FEELING nature) can be traced right back to early mammals in deep ancient sub-neocortical limbic regions of the brain. Panksepp and his colleagues have identified seven basic emotional systems (capitalisation of the names indicates that they refer to specific brain neural systems that are only partly understood): SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, LUST, CARE, PANIC and PLAY (Panksepp 2005a, 2005b). The human neocortex in all its cognitive complexity further processes these primary affects into more elaborate emotions such as love, shame and empathy (see Table 1). The evidence for these core emotional systems is laid out in detail elsewhere (Panksepp, 2003, 2005b, Watt, 2005), but here is a summary: 1. Opiate and dopamine agonists are drugs of abuse in humans and also attractive to other mammals. 2. PET studies show remarkable similarities in basic emotions in humans and other mammals and these emotions arise in deep, subcortical areas of the brain (see Fig. 1 and Table 2). 3. The anatomy and neurochemistry of these subcortical areas is remarkably similar in all mammals

and it is clearly evolutionarily homologous. 4. Areas of the brain that evoke consistent behavioural indicators of positive and negative affective states in humans and animals when electrically stimulated are remarkably similar and the most powerful feelings are generated in deep, subcortical areas. 5. Evolutionary common sense suggests that emotion is an evolutionary extension of homeostasis, and that cognition is an extension of emotion and the mammalian brain has evolved to seamlessly integrate these three levels as HOMEOSTASIS EMOTION COGNITION (Watt, 2005). The homeostatic mechanisms are largely unconscious, but these evolved into conscious, emotional feedback systems to let the animal know how things were going (well, or badly). It is likely that affects, or feelings are the only true reinforcers, a view in contrast to the behaviouristic assertion that outside events can reinforce behaviour with no associated feeling (see Watt, 2005 for full discussion).

The SEEKING System Coppinger & Coppinger (2001) describe in great detail the evolved motor patterns in various types of dog - livestock guardians, headers, heelers, hounds, pointers and retrievers. When a Border Collie is in eyestalk (see Fig. 2), is this just a behavioural motor pattern, or does he FEEL some pleasure as well? The answer to this question is an unequivocal YES, and his feeling arises in the same dopamine-driven SEEKING system that gives us pleasurable feelings when were engaged in a task we e njoy. This same system is the powerhouse behind extreme pleasure-seeking activities such as drug abuse and even addiction to extreme sports (Franklin, Zijlstra & Muris, 2006). In animals the genesis of many behaviour problems is the lack of opportunity to perform strong, innate behaviours and so adopts other, inappropriate behaviours instead. Some initially fear-related aggression problems in dogs turn in to addictive, dopamine-driven pleasure-seeking behaviours not unlike humans who enjoy the exhilaration of escape, as their nucleus accumbens is flooded with dopamine after terrifying them selves by jumping off a tall building (B.A.S.E. jumping). The FEAR System Although there are species differences in how the Fight-Flight-Freeze system is engaged when an animal is aroused by a novel and potentially dangerous stimulus, the underlying mechanism is the same in all mammals as mapped out by LeDoux, 1996. Information about external stimuli is relayed by the sensory organs (ear, eye) to the thalamus. A signal from a sudden noise, for example (see Fig. 3), arrives at the auditory thalamus that relays the data on to the sensory auditory cortex (High Road). The sensory cortex has the benefit of advanced cognitive processing and can therefore evaluate the incoming data, make a risk-benefit analysis of all the possible reactions and choose the best fit before sending the data on to the amygdala for an appropriate emotional response. The sensory cortexs job is to prevent an inappropriate response rather than to produce an appropriate one.

There is also a smaller, faster neural pathway running from the thalamus directly to the amygdala (Low Road), that is the storehouse for emotionally charged memories. The Low Road route cannot make fine distinctions, it has an important advantage over the High Road route speed. In an emergency this rapid response could be a matter of life or death. LeDoux calls it The Difference Between The Quick and the

Dead. Panksepp (2005b, 2006) has identified another route, the Royal Road that runs between the amyg dala and the periaqueductal gray (PAG) of the midbrain, and it is this system that constitutes the core FEAR system. It is here that the obnoxious and aversive FEELINGS of fear are generated and help an animal to anticipate and avoid danger. Other neuroscientists have largely ignored this system as meaningless output of little importance in the study of anxiety. However, Panksepp argues that it is central to understanding anxiety disorders, pointing out that this FEAR system is unconditional in that it generates these bad feelings simply by electrically stimulating it. It is also involved with the freezing and flight response and anxiolytic drugs ameliorate anxiety by modulating this FEAR system. Some dogs with a long-standing fear of thunder can become withdrawn, depressed and jumpy and it is the FEAR system that is responsible for these states. The RAGE System The RAGE system does just what it says on the box. In adults it is modulated by higher cognitive centres whereas children are less inhibited and therefore fly into tantrums easily. Other mammals also show rage and the emotion can be elicited by direct brain stimulation. The LUST System We talk in terms of instinct when referring to reproduction in other mammals, but the highly subjective erotic FEELINGS associated with it arise from ancient and deep subcortical structures common to all mammals. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the purpose of these highly desirable FEELINGS is to ensure the propagation of the species (Panksepp, 2006). The CARE System The behaviour of a whelping bitch to the distress calls of a separated puppy is a wonderful example of the CARE system. After the last pup is born, and for a duration of about thirteen days, the bitch is primed to respond to the distress calls of any puppy that wanders away from the nest (Coppinger & Coppinger, 2001, page 217-220). The CARE system (see Fig. 4) is present in all mammals (birds too) and triggered by the changing levels of oestrogen, progesterone, prolactin and oxytocin, gives the mother the innate ability to care for her young (Panksepp, 2006). The PANIC System Separation related disorders (SRD) are common behaviour problems in dogs, but how often do we relate how a whimpering dog FEELS when left alone to how we feel when, for example, we lose a loved one? Throughout the ages poets and philosophers have expressed love lost and the loss of meaningful social bonds in painful metaphors - broken hearts, hurt feelings - and this is common across many diverse cultures including Western and the Middle and Far East (MacDonald & Leary, 2005). Eisenberger and Lieberman (2004) have shown in fMRI studies that physical pain and social pain share common cognitive and neural systems in the brain and suggest that this is an evolutionarily adaptive setup that helps to ensure that conspecifics do not become separated from each other and vulnerable to danger, and in young, dependant mammals in particular, this system is essential for their survival.

Panksepp and colleagues have carried out extensive research over the last 25 years on separation distress in non-human animals (see Panksepp, 2003, 2005b, 2006 for summaries) and have also found considerable overlap in the brain areas for physical and social pain. They also found that opioid analgesics were very effective at alleviating the cries of separation distress in dogs, guinea pigs, rats, primates and even chicks, and that human sadness and guinea pig separation distress share remarkably similar brain regions (see Fig. 5) (Panksepp, 2003). In addition to opioids, neuropeptides such as prolactin and oxytocin also powerfully ameliorate separation distress and the feelings of depression and these substances open the door to the possibility of new and exciting pharmacologicals for treating such emotional states in the future. The anatomical and experimental data is irrefutable that the sub-cortical areas of the brain that generate and regulate both physical and social pain are evolutionarily ancient and are shared by all mammals. The ethological fact that gentle handling of the very young can stop their cries of separation, in part through the release of endorphins and oxytocin, and if left alone can suffer catastrophic psychic pain and will often die (Panksepp, 2005b). All of this has profound implications on those dealing with animals on a day-to-day basis, such as the veterinary and allied professions. Should veterinarians perhaps be considering the use of the longer acting opioids such buprenorphine, even fentanyl patches or morphine infusions, not just for their analgesic effects, but also for their powerful antidepressive effects on patients separated from their owners for any length of time?

The PLAY System We probably all take for granted rough and tumble play in pets (see Fig. 6), but the apparatus for play, the PLAY system, is actually built right into the brain (Panksepp, 2005b). Play is common across all mammals, but in ethological terms it is very expensive, even dangerous. It must therefore have a useful biological function where the benefits out-weigh the risks. Traditionally, biologists and ethologists believe that the purpose of play is to give animals safe opportunities to practice hunting and mating skills. But there is rather more to the PLAY system than this. Scientists have tended to lump play activities in with seeking activities and treat them as different facets of the same thing. But this is incorrect. The PLAY system and the SEEKING system are separate systems and work through different neural networks. When we see animals engaging in PLAY, theyll often engage some of the predatory behaviours we associate with the SEEKING system, for example 'stalking' each other, 'attacking' and 'biting' each other and so on, but this is simply because they have a limited behavioural repertoire. What youll notice is that dogs use different chains of behaviour in PLAY than they do in SEEKING play bows, high-pitch barking, tug of war games on a toy for example. The PLAY system and the SEEKING system are often antagonistic to each other rather than synergistic and cannot be engaged at the same time. A good example of this is the routine use of amphetamines (Ritalin) to treat children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Amphetamines work through the SEEKING system and increase attention and exploratory behaviour by increasing the availability of dopamine in the reinforcement circuits of the brain. In 'normal' people psycho-stimulants like amphetamines increase arousal and activi ty levels. If youve ever taken Speed, youll remember the effect of racing thoughts and chattiness, the inability to keep still to the point of agitation and the inability to sleep. Remarkably similar to some of the hyperactivity signs seen in kids with true ADHD!! But if you give these kids psycho-stimulants they have the opposite effect and calms them down! The reason for this paradox remained a mystery for a long time, but we now know that ADHD is a disorder of an over-active PLAY system and has nothing to do with arousal and the SEEKING system. Stimulating the SEEKING system in these kids antagonises and suppresses the PLAY system. Panksepp touches on the possibility of utilising rough and tumble play as part of a management program for children with ADHD, rather than just relying on amphetamines, that suppress the urge to play (Panksepp, 2006). The opioids (natural endorphins in the brain) play a major role in the PLAY system and the role of dopamine is insignificant by comparison (compare this with the SEEKING system, where dopamine is the major player). When animals play, theres a lot of body contact which causes the release of endorphins (and other neurotrophic substances, call them 'brain food' if you like) in the brain that makes them feel good euphoric. And because the animal is relaxed, unthreatened and therefore un-aroused, the PLAY system is engaged facilitating the growth of neural circuits that strengthen social attachments and getting along with mates. The PLAY system is not engaged when the animal is aroused. If the nature of this arousal is aversive, that is the animal feels threatened, then the FEAR system is engaged. On the other hand, if the nature of this arousal is appetitive, then the SEEKING system is engaged instead.

One intriguing, and highly controversial possibility is that laughter and joy may not be unique to humans and many mammals have a marvellous sense of fun (Panksepp, 2005c) and this poses an interesting question: could your pet have a rudimentary sense of humour? (see Fig. 7). Other evidence supporting these claims (Panksepp, 2005b) include: (1) amphetamines stimulation of the nucleus accumbens (the area of the brain flooded with dopamine at times of intense pleasure and mirth in humans) induces the same vigorous 50kHz chirping in rats when they are tickled, (2) rats that have been tickled become very friendly toward the tickler and chirp at 50kHz as he/she approaches the cage, and (3) these rats consistently choose to stay close to other rats that chirp a lot rather than those that do not.

In this summary we have made only a tiny scratch on the outer mantle of the massive volume of data now available on the rich mental lives of non-human animals, and we appeal to everyone responsible for the wellbeing of pets and other animals to take the time to explore this fascinating body of work and take advantage of it in their everyday endeavours to promote a better understanding of both the positive and negative impact we humans have on the animals in our care. Jaak Panksepps book, "Affective neuroscience: the foundations of human and animal emotions" (Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN: 019517805X) is the definitive summary of the evidence for the seven core emotional systems discussed in this brief article. Watt (2005) says about this book:Im reasonably confident that future neuroscience students will look on this textbook as one of the seminal publications on the subject of emotion and the brain

References Coppinger, R., Coppinger, L. (2001) Dogs: A new understanding of canine origin, behavior & evolution. University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-11563-1 Eisenburger, N., Leiberman, M. (2004) Why rejection hurts: a common neural alarm system for physical and social pain. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, Vol.8, No. 7, 294-300. Franken, I., Zijlstra, C., Muris, P. (2006) Are nonpharmacological induced rewards related to anhedonia? A study among skydivers. Progress in Neuro Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry, 30 (2006) 297300. Greenspan, R., Baars, B. (2005) Consciousness eclipsed: Jacques Loeb, Ivan P. Pavlov, and the rise of reductionistic biology after 1900. Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 219-230. Lecas J-C. (2006) Behaviourism and the mechanization of the mind. C. R. Biologies, 329 (2006) 386 397. LeDoux, J. (1996) The Emotional Brain, Simon and Schuster Inc., New York. MacDonald, G., Leary, M. (2005) Why does social exclusion hurt? The relationship between social and physical pain. Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 131, No. 2, 202-223. McMillan, F., Rollin, B. (2001) The presence of mind: on reunifying the animal mind and body. JAVMA, Vol. 218, No. 11, 1723-1726. Panksepp, J. (2003) Feeling the pain of social loss. Science, 302, 237-239. Panksepp, J. (2005a) Toward a science of ultimate concern. Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 22-29. Panksepp, J. (2005b) Affective consciousness: Core emotional feelings in animals and humans.

Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 30-80. Panksepp, J. (2005c) Beyond a joke: From animal laughter to human joy?. Science, 308, 62-63. Panksepp, J. (2006) Emotional endophenotypes in evolutionary psychiatry. Progress in NeuroPsychopharmacolgy & Biological Psychiatry, 30, 774-784. Watt, D. (2005) Panksepps common sense view of affective neuroscience is not the commonsense view in large areas of neuroscience. Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 81-88.

Consciousness and Emotions: Different Ends of the Same Stick

Consciousness and emotions are bodily states that are prominent features of our daily lives and we all have an intuitive understanding of what they are. Yet they have proved difficult to objectively define and measure in scientific terms. The fact that consciousness and emotional feelings are subjective, and therefore elusive to scientific scrutiny, is the main reason why they have been largely rejected by behavioural psychologists as legitimate modalities for study - we discuss this in The Historical Perspective. In his book Principles of Psychology published in 1890, William James wrote that consciousness was an awareness of oneself and the environment. James definition remains the standard definition touted in many text books today and most people are comfortable with this explanation when they first come across it. On closer scrutiny, however theres a problem. We have to define what awareness and the self are. And it turns out that awareness is non other than consciousness, and the definition of the self is as elusive as that of consciousness! As a first step to solving this puzzle, lets begin by teasing out what we know about some of the properties of consciousness and emotions. Consciousness Consciousness has different levels, such as awake, asleep, coma etc., where our degree of consciousness varies on a continuum from very conscious, through semi-conscious and on to unconscious. Consciousness also has content, what we are actually conscious of, such as being aware that were frightened. Whether its possible to be conscious without content is unknown, but its conceivable in certain seizure or meditative states. Obviously, theres no content in unconsciousness, if there were it would be a state of consciousness. And of course, the content of consciousness is subject to the narrow focus of selective attention (we only pay attention to about 40 of the 11,000,000 bits of information per second that constantly bombard our brains from our senses; eyes, ears, nose, skin, internal organs, etc.). Next, lets see what we can unravel about the concept of the self. Before we do this, we need to know a little about how children's minds develop. It was for a long time believed that children's minds worked like adult minds, just with less knowledge in essence they were stupid versions of adults. In 1924, Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget published his stages of cognitive development, that mapped out four, distinct stages a childs brain goes through as it grows from birth through to adolescence. We won't concern ourselves with these stages here, except for one - the so-called preoperational stage that occurs roughly, and gradually, between the ages of 2 and 8 years. During this stage, children start to rely less and less on sensorimotor information from the environment and shift their attention toward symbolic and conceptual information. The development of language starts at around 2 and is pretty much complete by 4 years of age. By age 7, children are increasingly using words to think (inner speech) and to solve problems by talking their way through them. Children are not born with the ability to appreciate that others think differently from themselves egocentrism is the inability to conceive the point of view of others. A good example is a young child that covers his eyes and assumes that because he cant see you, you cant see him. For those who have young children, the reason they readily stand in front of you and block your view of the television is because they genuinely cannot appreciate that you do not see what they see, they are not being rude or inconsiderate.

Between the ages of about 4 through to 8, children gradually develop the ability to see things from anothers point of view, a theory of mind. They begin to appreciate that internal feelings akin to their own, such as sad, happy, angry and so on, are experienced by others as well, and they begin to read this information from facial expressions 'mum with a sad face means she feels sad. In other words, they develop empathy. It is now widely acknowledged that in autistic children and adults with Aspergers syndrome (a mild form of autism), this is the bit 'lacking' or 'missing'. These people have profound difficulties in appreciating the mental states of other individuals. Whether non-human animals possess a theory of mind is a matter of hot debate in scientific circles and ultimately unknowable because we cant ask them! fMRI studies in humans show that parts of the parietal and temporal lobes, the anterior cingulate and the insular cortex light up when subjects are asked to think about themselves or others. Again, in other species these experiments are unrepeatable because one cannot ask the animal to think specifically about anything! I personally do not think that non-human animals have a theory of mind, not in the sense that we understand it anyway; and I'll develop this argument further at a later date. But does this mean then they are not conscious either? Many scientists take the view that the content component of human consciousness arises from higher brain functions where theory of mind exists and that other mammals (or any other animals for that matter) simply do not have this capacity. The general consensus in the scientific community therefore, is that consciousness, as described above, is something unique to human beings. Recent research disputes this long-held view (see Our Emotional Pets). It now appears more likely that consciousness is not a unitary property of mind, in the sense that you either have it, or you dont. Rather, it exists at three levels that have developed one on top of the other in ever-evolving sophistication over evolutionary time. 1. Primary consciousness: Consists of raw, sensory and perceptual feelings such as hungry, thirsty, hot, cold and so on. Feelings that would be a great advantage in maintaining bodily homeostasis. This level of consciousness gives raw feedback on how things are going in the outside world, well or badly, and is primarily concerned with keeping the organism out of trouble and alive. 2. Secondary consciousness: Consists of the capacity to have thoughts about experiences. This is where the content of consciousness resides. 3. Tertiary consciousness: Consists of the capacity to have thoughts about thoughts, self-awareness and to be able to express these feelings linguistically. This is where the theory of mind component of consciousness resides. Its pretty evident from the science that all mammals (and perhaps some other vertebrates as well) share both primary and secondary consciousness. Its also pretty certain that tertiary consciousness is unique to human beings. Tertiary consciousness requires high intelligence, and high intelligence requires special behavioural conformation. To learn about behavioural conformation, read Coppinger's book, cited in the references for Our Emotional Pets. What weve really been concerned with in the above discussion is the content aspect of consciousness.

Emotions
So far, Ive said a great deal about consciousness, but very little about the other end of the stick emotions. So lets address this imbalance right now. Many scientists working in the field behavioural psychology using laboratory animals (see The Historical Perspective) have been inclined to split emotions into emotional behaviours and emotional feelings. The reason for this is that it lets them off the hook when it comes to explaining why they believe that a behaviour, such a withdrawal from a painful stimulus, works differently in the brain of a rat, or your dog or cat than it does in you, a human.

An emotion consists of a physiological state, such as increased heart rate, sweating, dilated pupils and so on. It also has a conscious, feeling state, such as feeling fearful. Psychologists call this subjective feeling an affect, so youll see the term affective state used in text books and journals. The consequence of an emotion is generally some behavioural response, such as running away, or the withdrawal of a paw from a thorn. The feeling also causes a change in the level of arousal, that affects how strongly the memory of the emotional event is laid down. Lets now have a look at each of these states of emotion in some more detail. Emotions physiological states The hypothalamus of the limbic system is directly connected to the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system where it affects organs such as the heart, lungs and gut. The hypothalamus also causes the release of adrenaline into the blood stream from the adrenal glands perched on top of the kidneys. The hypothalamus is also connected to the pituitary gland and stimulates it to release adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) that travels down to the adrenal glands through the circulation and stimulates the release of more adrenaline, and also cortisol into the blood stream. This is called the hypothalamicpituitaryadrenal axis, or HPA axis for short. Together, these two systems are responsible for the so-called stress response. The direct connection of the hypothalamus to the sympathetic nervous system mediates a rapid response, compared to the indirect HPA route. So, the stress response occurs in two distinct waves of activity as summarised below: 1st wave, autonomic response: Rapid (seconds). Causes an almost immediate increase in the heart rate and respiratory rate, dilates blood vessels to get more blood and oxygen into muscles. Dilates the iris in the eyes so the animal can see better. It also slows the gut down, diverting blood used for digestion to the muscles. 2nd wave, HPA axis response: Slow (minutes to hours). Causes the adrenal glands to release cortisol. Cortisol mobilises the glucose stores in the liver and muscles so it can be metabolised as fuel in the brain, muscles, heart and other organs. Cortisol also primes the hippocampus to add an affective flavour to the memory of the event that triggered the stress response in the first place.

Both systems work together to provide more blood, oxygen and nutrients to the vital organs so the animal is prepared for fight or flight, and to ensure that an appropriately meaningful memory is laid down recording the event. Our bodies are optimised to thrive on a little bit of daily stress. We perform better and we learn better, and this applies to all mammals. The problem lies in uncontrolled, long-standing (or chronic) stress. The main reason for this is the sustained elevated levels of cortisol floating round in the system. The adrenaline is also a problem. If there was no real emergency, such as running away, to burn it all up, the adrenaline remains in the blood stream causing sustained autonomic stimulation. With long exposure, cortisol and adrenaline damage the immune system, cause diabetes, stunt growth, impair memory and learning and cause high blood pressure. Of course, in evolutionary terms the stress response is really important for the survival of an organism it gets it out of trouble fast and if appropriate, gives it something to remember and therefore avoid similar situations in the future. In our modern sheltered, cosy, domestic lives, real danger is not much of a problem, but in our lifestyles, chronic stress certainly is. The same applies to our pets, especially when we behave in unpredictable ways that they cant make sense of, or train them with little or no feedback! Emotions affective states We discuss the work of Paul Ikman and the six basic emotional states, Happiness, Anger, Surprise,

Disgust, Sadness, and Fear in another section, see More About Emotions. What is really interesting for us in relation to our pets is that research over the last decade or so has shown that the development of some of these emotional affects is phylogenetically much older than previously thought. The parts of the brain that are responsible for the FEELINGS of anger, fear, happiness and sadness are present and well developed in ALL mammals, and some other non-mammals as well. In addition, all mammals have brain systems that are responsible for the FEELINGS of being separated from chums, play and lust. Have a look at this table:-

Tie these basic, mammalian emotional affects in with the three levels of consciousness, primary, secondary and tertiary, that I described above, and we can begin to draw some objective conclusions about where FEELINGS in out pets fit in to the overall scheme of things. The table above shows a logical evolutionary progression of:HOMEOSTASIS ---> EMOTION ---> COGNITION It makes no sense at all to assert that somehow humans are the only species that can experience affective states. There are just too many advantages to the survival of a species for basic FEELINGS to have been bypassed until Homo sapiens appeared on the planet. After all, how your dog or cat FEELS at any moment is highly subjective. The only way to truly find out is to ask him! On this I will leave you to ponder and draw your own conclusions...

More About Emotions

What exactly are 'Emotions'? There is a huge amount of variation and diversity in the customs, rituals and behaviours across the many different cultures in the world. The importance of an understanding of these differences was all too publically highlighted in an incident in Brazil when president Nixon of the United States was participating in a diplomatic speech. At one point, he gestured the western all ok sign (making a ring with the thumb and index finger), which in South America happens to mean I want sex with you. In France, this gesture means zero and in Japan money. And there are many other examples just do a Google search for communicating with gestures. In the 1970s Paul Ekman and a team of psychologists set off across the world to investigate variations in facial expressions across different cultures, and to find out if there were any that were common to all races. The purpose of the study was to cut through all the variations that had developed as part of the different cultural traditions, and establish if there were any evolutionary roots that were the starting points on which this diversity was build. What Ekman and his colleagues found was that there are six universally understood facial expressions which happened to express six basic emotional states:1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Happiness Anger Surprise Disgust Sadness Fear

The interesting fact about these six basic facial expressions is that they are hard wired in the brain. That is, we are all born with the ability to operate all the right muscles in our faces in exactly the right way to express each of these emotional feelings. And we are born with the ability to recognise these facial expressions in others. The so-called preoperational stage of child development, between 2 and 7 years old, is the time during which children develop a theory of mind (see Consciousness and Emotions). And of course, this is exactly what this facial recognition is all about! Can you recognise the 6 basic emotional states in these women?

The Historical Perspective

Ask most pet owners how they think their pet feels and theyll answer with terms like happy, sad, angry and so on, endowing on them a state of consciousness. I use the term consciousness here as the ability to experience internal, personal subjective experiences, or feelings such as sadness, joy, happiness, fear, anger, etc. In the 19th century the study of consciousness was considered an integral part of scientific endeavour and even eminent scientists such as Charles Darwin and William James took it as read that feelings were not unique to human beings. It might therefore come as a surprise, even a shock for most pet owners to realise that the current generally accepted consensus among neuroscientists working with human and/or non-human subjects is that only humans are conscious (see Consciousness and Emotions). The dying years of the 19th century and the dawn of the 20th century was a time of great scientific endeavour when proper sciences like medicine, physics, chemistry and engineering were on the ascendant. On the other hand psychology, and its association with mental processes, was sidelined and

largely ignored, and the study of consciousness became a taboo. The work of Ivan Pavlov on stimulus-response conditioning was very much in tune with the times, and in an attempt to elevate psychology into a mainstream science, John Watson spearheaded the behaviourist movement. In 1913 Watson published a groundbreaking paper in the journal Psychological Review called 'Psychology as the behaviorist views it' (aka the 'behaviourists manifesto'). In this paper he challenged fellow psychologists to... throw off the yoke of consciousness, ...suggesting that concerning ones self with such vagaries as consciousness, mind, emotions and feelings had failed psychology... as an experimental discipline to make its place in the world as an undisputed natural science. He called upon his colleagues... never to use terms like consciousness, mental states, mind and the like, ...and to concentrate on behaviour only, as this could be seen, measured and verified. Watson saw behaviour as an exclusively physical, mechanical, stimulus-response phenomenon, and anything else that went on in the black box of the mind should be ignored as irrelevant background noise. Frederic Skinners (another staunch proponent of behaviourism) seminal work on reinforcement learning in the 1940s and 50s followed very much along the same mechanisti c line, as has the rest of mainstream science ever since. Over the last 25 years, neuroscientists have contributed vast amounts of information on emotional learning, and fear conditioning is one of the most extensively studied phenomena in neurophysiology. The question arises as to whether non-human animals EXPERIENCE fear, that is, do they have the same aversive internal mental FEELINGS as humans that accompany the obvious behavioural response, such as a dog fearful of thunder? The stock answer is that they dont! Some scientists still argue that when you see your dog hiding under the sofa shivering with fear, youre witnessing an emotional behaviour, a very different thing from an emotional feeling that arises from higher brain centres that only humans have. This stubborn lack of acceptance by some sectors of the scientific community, that only humans experience subjective emotional states, is in no small part due to the Pandoras box of welfare and ethical issues that would arise if one was to accept that lab animals experienced feelings not unlike some of our own. Over the last decade or so there has been a growing number of eminent scientists challenging this belief and there is now indisputable evidence that in fact, all mammals have rich and varied emotional lives (see Our Emotional Pets). It now appears that rather than being a recent development of the human neocortex, the roots of consciousness can be traced right back to early mammals in deep, ancient subneocortical limbic regions of the brain. And it is in these brain regions that basic feelings such as fear, loneliness, happiness, sadness, anger and lust arise. This evidence now strongly suggests that, far from being irrelevant background noise, these basic emotions evolved as integral and essential parts of the animals learning apparatus. What a dog, or cat, or any other mammal FEELS is an essential part of what he learns.

Emotional Problems in Pets

The long-overdue acceptance that pets have emotions very much like our own has been pivotal in a reappraisal of the modern behaviourists approach to behaviour problems is pets. We now realise that, even though the precise measurement of emotions remains elusive, FEELINGS are an essential element of how pets, and humans for that matter, learn anything! So it makes good sense to start with the FEELINGS when dealing with behaviour problems in pets, such as aggression, over-grooming, nervousness, etc. This approach was developed by the behaviourists at the Centre of Applied Pet Ethology (COAPE) and has been adopted as the standard my many successful behaviour therapists all over the world. Typically this 'emotional approach' is carried out in three stages:1. An emotional assessment: This is an assessment of what emotions the pet is experiencing whilst engaged in the problem behaviour. 2. A mood state assessment: This is an assessment of how the pet feels generally from one day to the next. 3. A reinforcement assessment: This is an holistic appraisal of the entire situation aimed at identifying the factors responsible for maintaining the problem behaviour. These factors commonly persist, despite rigorous and varied attempts to eliminate them by owners, trainers and behaviourists. So, by recognising that cats, dogs and other pets experience emotions very much like our own, instead of simply judging them by their behaviour, modern animal behaviourists are now learning to solve behaviour problems in pets much more humanely and effectively.

It's All in the Genes. Or is it?

Nature, Nurture or Both? When I see a type of dog, I can in many cases imagine in my minds eye a pretty consistent repertoire of characteristics and behaviours for each. But, in a police identity line -up of, say black Labradors, I think I would have trouble recognising one from another in many cases. In a sense, were all leaves from one tree in that we all share similar anatomy and physiology with other mammals. For example, we all have one heart and two kidneys, the amygdala is always in the same relative position in the brain, and we all have the same neurotransmitters and neurotransmitter receptor sites that are altered by the same drugs. There are also similarities across the board in our psychology (and therefore behaviour) as well. For example, puppy dogs start to fear things they have not encountered before at around 7 weeks of age. For

wolves its 3 weeks, kittens 4 weeks and humans 8 months. That said, presented with 10 identical Springer Spaniels in a police identity line -up, I could identify my dog easily, and Im sure the same would hold true for your dog too. What is it that makes your dog (cat, horse, rabbit, guinea pig, hamster, etc.) unique? For that matter, what makes you YOU? For all of us, cats and dogs included, there are two forces at work that sculpt each of us out of a raw block of organic matter and shape who we are both physically and mentally: Nature the genes we inherit from our parents Nurture the environmental influences we encounter through life. From what out mothers ate and did through our gestation before birth to everything we experience throughout our lives and on to our eventual deaths.

Nature At the time of writing (Autumn 2009) six mammals, humans, chimpanzees, mice, rats, dogs and cows have recently had their complete genomes sequenced and catalogued. In 2005 the genome of the dog was finally cracked with a great deal of publicity and fanfare. The genome of an organism is the sum of the entire genetic information inherited from its parents. Your genome consists of 22 chromosomes and an X chromosome from your Mother, and 22 chromosomes and either a Y or an X chromosome from your Father. So YOU are made from the combination of these 46 chromosomes and your sex is determined by your Father. If your Father donated an X chromosome then your combo is XX and youre female, if he gave a Y then your combo is XY and youre male. Chromosomes are each made up of millions of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) molecules (there are 2.5 billion units of DNA in the entire genome) strung together and some segments of this DNA within the chromosomes has been identified as the control centres for specific aspects of how youre made. These segments are your genes, and it was once believed that there were around 30,000 of them in the human genome, but recent research as reduced this number to around 20,000 to 25,000. As genes are switched on and off, they provide the blueprints for creating protein, the building blocks of your physical self. If you think of your genome as a book, then the chromosomes are its 46 chapters, the genes are the 20,000 words and the DNA are the 2.5 billion letters. The researchers who decoded the dogs genome tested 60 different breeds of dog and chose the Boxer as the least variable and so the most representative of dogs. The dogs genome is about the same size as the human genome and that of other mammals around 2.5 billion DNA units. The number of chromosomes in the average dog varies from 36 to 78 chromosomes, reflecting the variation within the species. Similarity rather than difference is the rule when it comes to comparing the gene sequences of different species with one another. For example, we humans share 96% (some researches say its 99.4%) of our genome with chimpanzees, and 50% with a banana. D ogs differ from gray wolves by about 0.2%. So its these tiny little differences in gene sequences that make the big difference in what we turn out to be. Traits within a species the look of Labradors and their generally friendly, laid back personalities compared with the smaller and much quicker Patterdale Terrier for example is determined by groups of genes acting together. Different genes within a group control how each of the unique Labrador or Patterdale physical and behavioural characteristics develop to make sure that the end result looks and behaves as it should! For example, the shape of the head, colour of the eyes, length and shape of the legs, type of tail and so on.

As genes duplicate themselves, nature allows for slight variations in how the resulting genes work in the next generation. Most of these changes have no effect, but some do change the organisms ability, for the better or worse, to get on in its natural environment, and this is what natural selection (look up Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution if youre rusty on this) operates on. This natural gene variation is also responsible for the different traits we see in our dogs, and indeed our fellow human beings. So two Siamese from the same litter may turn out looking identical, but if ever youve owned such a pair, Ill bet that each has his own distinctive personality and quirky little ways! Its pretty obvious that from the second an organism is born, the environment, or nurture, gets to work shaping it and influencing how the final adult product turns out. The difficulty for science has always been how to go about objectively picking out which bits came from nature and which from nurture and measuring them, particularly in humans where there would be enormous ethical issues in experimenting on children. But nature has provided the perfect experimental subjects with twins. In fact, for many pet species of animal, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters and so on, not just twins, but multiple litters are the norm. There are two types of twins fraternal and identical. Fraternal twins are the result of the fertilisation of multiple ova by multiple sperm and they can be of either sex. Fraternal twins are what we see in litters of puppies where individuals may be genetically no more alike than if they had been conceived in a different litter by the same parents. Identical twins on the other hand are the result of the fertilisation of a single ovum by a single sperm that subsequently splits into two genetically identical parts and they are always same-sex; either both male or both female. In humans the number of births that result in twins varies enormously, but a rough average is one in 35 births. Of these around 2/3 are fraternal and the other 1/3 identical twins. Identical twins in other species rarely, if ever, occur naturally, or have never been recorded. In dogs a few natural cases have recently been reported. What all this boils down to is that it makes human identical and fraternal twins the ideal subjects for the ethical study of the influence of nature over nurture on how an individual turns out. Identical twins are effectively natures clones. Its pretty obvious that genes passed down from the parents are solely responsible for what their progeny turn out to look like and, apart from accidental injury, or intentional invasive body adornment, nurture plays no part. But what about personality and behaviour? Years of research on tens of thousands of both identical and fraternal human twins from birth right through to adulthood has shown categorically that genes really do matter psychologically as well. The data shows that identical twins share far more personality traits than fraternal twins, such as outgoingness, emotional instability, interests and acquired habits. One of the most fascinating aspects of all this research is the data collected on identical twins separated at birth. Statistically, identical twins tend to be around 80 percent the same in everything from stature to health to IQ to political views. The similarities are partly the product of similar upbringing. But evidence from the comparison of twins raised apart points rather convincingly to genes as the source of a lot of that likeness. In 1979 the most widely publicised study of twins separated at birth was carries out by psychologist Thomas Bouchard and colleagues, that chronicled the fates of about 60 pairs of identical twins raised separately. Some of the pairs had scarcely met before Bouchard contacted them, and yet the behaviours, personalities and social attitudes they displayed in lengthy batteries of tests were often remarkably alike. The first pair Bouchard met, James Arthur Springer and James Edward Lewis, had just been reunited at age 39 after being given up by their mother and separately adopted as 1-month-olds. Springer and Lewis, both Ohioans, found they had each married and divorced a woman named Linda and remarried a Betty. They shared interests in mechanical drawing and carpentry; their favourite school subject had been math, their least favourite, spelling. They smoked and drank the same amount and got headaches at the same

time of day. Equally astounding was another set of twins, Oskar Stohr and Jack Yufe. Separated from his twin six months after their birth in Trinidad, Oskar was brought up Catholic in Germany and joined the Hitler Youth. Jack stayed behind in the Caribbean, was raised a Jew and lived for a time in Israel. Yet despite the stark contrast of their lives, when the twins were reunited in their fifties they had similar speech and thought patterns, similar gaits, a taste for spicy foods and common peculiarities such as flushing the toilet before they used it. Adapted from a story in The Washington Post, Sunday, January 11, 1998 So, what all this information tells us is that genes are equally as important for behavioural characteristics as well as physical characteristics in humans at least, and its reasonable to assume that the same holds true for other species as well. Nurture Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man" said St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552). It takes no leap of faith to accept that, along with the genes, environment must also play a crucial role in how an organism turns out, but this gem of wisdom from Xavier implies something important that was even understood 500 years ago. That in humans, the first few years of life are more important for a childs development than the rest of its life. We now know that the same is true for many animals, including mammals and birds. But how? And for that matter, why? The brain is made up of about 100 billion neurons all connected, or synapsed to each other to create one of the most complicated structures known to man in which there may be 1,000 trillion synapses! These connections are anything but random and haphazard; in fact each one is incredibly precise. Many of these connections are made as the foetus develops in the womb, driven by the genetic programs of nature. However, many other synapses form only after birth and must be activated by external stimuli (vision, hearing, touch and so on) in order to develop and become fully functional. So, if the mature brain was a beautiful sculpture, it started life as a rough brick of clay and the hands of nurture moulded and sculptured it into a priceless masterpiece. And all this sculpting has a sell -by date it must be complete within a relatively short timeframe of the animals early life. In 1935 embryologist Hans Spemann won the Nobel Prize for his work on developing amphibian embryos. Spemann showed that when a section of early embryo was transplanted from one place to another it caused this tissue to take on the identity of the tissue over which it was implanted. He also found that this phenomenon only occurred if transplantation occurred within a well defined and narrow time frame of the embryos early life, and once the transformation had occurred it could not subsequently be reversed by returning the tissue to its original location. The transplanted tissue had been irreversibly physically altered by the transplantation, and this could only occur during a critical period of the embryos development. At around the same time zoologist Konrad Lorenz discovered a similar natural process in baby geese. When the goslings emerged from their eggs, they became socially attached to the first moving object they saw, following it around as though it was their mother. He called this imprinting, suggesting that the mother-image was somehow etched permanently into the goslings brains. And, like Spemanns embryos, imprinting would only happen within a specific time window the first 2 days of life in the case of Lorenzs goslings, after which they would not imprint on anything and would likely perish as a result. Lorenz called this window the critical period of social attachment. The work of Spemann and Lorenz stirred up enormous interest for developmental psychologists because

of its implications on early child development, and the search was on to better understand the mechanisms behind these critical periods. In 1981 David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel received the Nobel Prize for their research on the development of the mammalian visual system which greatly broadened our understanding of the vital role of early experiences on the development of many species.

Critical Periods and Sensitive Periods

Actually, some of these periods are less critical than others, and its useful to think of these ones as sensitive periods. There is an important difference between a critical period and a sensitive period of development. A critical period is a window of opportunity during which a specific event must occur in order for that stage to proceed normally. For example, children born with congenital cataracts must have them removed so the eye can function normally by seeing things before a year or so of age. Even if the cataract is removed after this critical period, vision will never be acquired in that eye, not because the eye itself is defective, but because the visual cortex was never stimulated to develop properly and process visual signals. Compare this with people who develop cataracts as adults that render them blind for sometimes years before they are finally removed. Once removed, site is immediately restored and is as good as it ever was. This is because the visual cortex was stimulated normally during early childhood. A sensitive period is a window of opportunity during which, if a specific event occurs, that stage of development would proceed more readily than if the event occurred at some other time. For example, learning a second language, and being able to speak it fluently with the native accent is much easier for children at an early age. Remarkably, the same cortical language centre of the brain is used in these children for both their native and the second language. In older children and adults however, the second language is located in a new language centre quite separate from the native language centre. The optimal sensitive period for learning a new language is up to around the time of puberty, after that, its much harder.

The Importance of Social Attachment

Maternal behaviour is obviously vital for the survival and wellbeing of the young. But theres another, equally important side to this story the attachment of the offspring to their parents (the mother in most mammals). Like many mammals, humans are a social species and naturally form strong, life-long bonds with their conspecifics. We dont waste any time and get right down to it from the moment we are born, whe re we form a strong bond with those caring for us. So strong is our human-centricity that theres even a specific area of the brain (called the fusiform face area; we came across this on the Student Resource Centre for Unit 3) dedicated to recognising faces. From the moment we first open our eyes, its ready and waiting to seek out a face. At around 8 months old, as object permanence is developing and babies are becoming more mobile, something off happens. They develop stranger anxiety a fear of strangers. By 12 months most babies will cling to a familiar caregiver when frightened, and after a separation will be all hugs and smiles when reunited.

It was first believed that social attachment was simply the result of reinforcement the food supplied by the caregiver was the primary reinforcer, and the caregiver was merely a secondary reinforcer. This was shown not to be the case by Harry and Margaret Harlow who, in 1959, conducted a cruel experiment on baby Rhesus monkeys. In order to test the relative importance of food versus contact, baby monkeys were raised in isolation with 2 artificial mothers placed in the cage with them. One was made of bare wire mesh with a rough wooden head and had a milk feeding bottle attached to it. The other was made of soft, velvety cloth that the baby could cling to, but had no milk. The infants overwhelmingly preferred the soft mother and would only visit the wire mother to feed. This soft mother was also more effective in decreasing the youngsters fear and the infant would explore more when the cloth mother was present. So, softness and warmth is more important than nourishment. In order to develop normally, a monkey must have some interaction with an object to which it can cling during the first months of life during a critical period. For monkeys clinging is a natural response and reduces stress. The Harlows found that the monkeys that survived being raised in isolation for a year never recovered they were withdrawn, fearful and never managed to interact socially with other monkeys. However, if they were brought up in isolation, but were placed in a room with a couple of other baby monkeys for just 20 minutes a day, they grew up normally. In the 1980s a shocking story emerged about the deprivation of children i n Romanian orphanages that had striking similarities to Harlows monkeys published 20 years earlier. Children reared in isolation for the first 8 months of life without the opportunity to form attachments are generally damaged for life. Feral children have also offered scientists a unique opportunity to study the effects of social deprivation. What happens when a child initially forms a strong attachment to its mother and is then separated? Studies on adopted children show that 6 to 16 month-olds would not eat, or sleep properly and had difficulty in forming new bonds with their foster mothers. However, when checked again as 10 year-olds, these children had grown up normally with no apparent social deficits. Children older than 2, on the other hand, had much more difficulty adapting to and forming social attachments with their foster mothers. Clearly, this data has serious implications for a fostering system that moves children around from one home to another before they can develop strong attachments to any one fosterer.

Stages of Development in Puppies

In 1965, John Paul Scott and John Fuller published a book documenting the largest and most well documented social experiment ever undertaken on a pet species, dogs, conducted over a 20 year period at the Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Labs in Bar Harbor, Maine, USA. Scott, J. P. & Fuller J. L. (1965). Genetics and the social behavior of the dog. University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-74338-1. Its no exaggeration to say that everything youve heard or read about the social requirements for a litter of puppies to grow into well balanced dogs, and by extrapolation of this data, a litter of kittens to grow into well balanced cats, will have been based on this important research. Scott and Fuller originally identified 4 key stages in the development of puppies the prenatal period, the neonatal period, the transition period, and the socialisation and juvenile period. Practically, we can ignore the prenatal period, that time from conception to birth, and update and refine the other 3 periods into these 5: 1. The neonatal period: 0 to 14 days. 2. The transitional period: 2 to 3 weeks. 3. The socialisation period: 3 to 12 weeks.

4. The juvenile period: 12 weeks to sexual maturity. 5. The adult period: sexual maturity onwards. Here are some of the findings they documented for puppies in no particular order: Puppies can be socialised to humans in just two 20 minute sessions per week. Puppies quickly increase their social contact with an unfamiliar stimulus between 3 and 12 weeks, but there is a more sensitive period between 6 and 8 weeks. This coincides with the onset of fear in strange situations. The best time to expose and socialise puppies is between 6 and 8 weeks, and this would be a good time to remove them from the litter. Puppies should be introduced to all the conditions they are likely to meet as adults by no later than 12 weeks. Puppies kept in restricted conditions until 14 weeks displayed various phobias. Reared with little or no human contact they developed a fear of humans that was incredibly difficult to overcome, if at all.

About Robert Falconer-Taylor

Robert Falconer-Taylor is a veterinarian specialising in behaviour problems in small animals. He qualified from the Royal Veterinary College in London in 1981 and first went into mixed veterinary practice and then into exclusively companion animal practice. He is a partner and of Veterinary Consultant to the Centre of Applied Pet Ethology (COAPE), which offers a range of residential and correspondence courses in companion animal behaviour and behaviour therapy, and a member of the COAPE Association of Pet Behaviourists and Trainers (CAPBT) . He currently devotes much of his time as an educator, lecturer, writer on animal welfare and other related issues. Robert has also spent time in industry as a management consultant and IT specialist and as a trainer to the veterinary and allied professions. He is the website designer and manager for the COAPE and other websites.

Contact Robert Falconer-Taylor

BEHAVIOUR PRACTICES & DOG TRAINING CLUB DETAILS: COAPE Association of Pet Behaviourists and Trainers (www.capbt.org) Tel 0844 344 0817 UK, Outside UK +44 1463 811878 (Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm) e-Mail: robertft@emotions-r-us.com